Sleep Lab Observation Summary

The sleep lab was well organized into three rooms each with its electroencephalograms (EEGs), electromyogram (EMG) and electro-oculogram (EOG). There was one sleep technician and a respiratory therapist in charge of monitoring patients sleep activity. There were three patients in each room.

The technician allowed the patients rest in their bed facing upwards. He carefully placed the electrodes in front of the right and left eye. This was meant to study the movement of the eyes during sleep using EOG. Secondly, he placed other electrodes on scalp to study brain activity using EEG. Lastly, he placed other electrodes over the chin muscle to measure activity of muscles during sleep with the help of EMG. The patients were then left eight hours as the electrical activities are graphed in the respective machines.

After the study time was over, the patients woke up and the respective electrodes carefully removed by the technicians. They were then released to go home as the results await the doctor for analysis and conclusion. The machines gave out graphical representation of various patterns of sleep. These were to be used to relate with the various stages of sleep. This was run on two session and the results were unanimous.

The doctor’s arrival was the beginning of graphical analysis of each of the patients’ results. The doctor classified the patients as either having rapid eye movement sleep (REM) or non rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). This was done according to the EEG results of the amplitudes, frequency waves and also the movement of the eyes. He further grouped the NREM sleep into three various stages; N1, N2 and N3 following brain waves and eye movement. Additionally, apart from the machine analysis, the respiratory therapist recorded the way each patient breathed. One of the patients had problems in breathing characterized by repeated ceasation breathing then gasping the air. On further analysis, one patient was found to have sleep apnea following his breathing pattern. Notably, the doctor pointed out on a possibility of obesity which according to him is a linked with sleep apnea. Nevertheless, the doctor suggested the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to normalize patient’s respiration. He finally concluded that apnea was as a result of repetitive apneas and hypopneas (Antczak, Horn, Richter, Bodenschatz, Latuszynski, Schmidt, & Jernajczyk, 2012).